


Things To Do In Scranton When You're Dead

by Kyra



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: F/M, Humor, M/M, Morning After, Multi, Other, Sitcom Fic, Swingers, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-20
Updated: 2007-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 23:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/pseuds/Kyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How a number of very surprising but ultimately enjoyable things happened to Ryan Bailey Howard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things To Do In Scranton When You're Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Set during season 3. Written for the nothing_hip LJ community, 2007.

Ryan's having a weird year. Couple of years. Things keep happening that he would never in a million years have believed would happen: that he'd be on a reality show or documentary or whatever. That his boss would have a creepy, unshakeable crush on him. That he would _still be working at Dunder Mifflin_. That he would suck so much at selling paper. That he'd be with Kelly, like, _with_ her for more than a year. And meet her parents. That he'd-- well, this is usually where he stops when he's complaining to his brother or his roommate or some sympathetic nodding girl in a bar. But there's a lot of weird stuff, okay?

**

Michael's Taste Our Multicultural Friends Party is turning out less successfully than he probably hoped. Ryan is leaning on the conference room wall closest to the door, wondering how long he has to stay to keep from getting a long lecture from Michael tomorrow about team spirit.

"Hey," says Jim, wandering over with a plate of something that smells awful.

"Hey," Ryan says.

"So... you and Kelly are on a break, huh?" Jim asks.

Ryan eyes him and doesn't say anything.

Jim nods a little to himself and pokes at something on his plate that looks like maybe it's succotash. Ryan's not sure how he knows what succotash looks like.

"It's funny, uh," Jim says. "Because actually Karen was wondering, um." He stops, and Ryan glances over. "I mean, we thought maybe--" He stops again and coughs and looks across the room -- when Ryan follows his glance, Karen's watching them. "Actually, you know what, I think Angela needed help bringing in the soda, so..." He takes off like Michael's coming after him with a pair of beets and a horrifying joke. Which is what he actually does to Ryan several minutes later, so. Ryan shakes his head, for any number of reasons.

**

Ryan's only opinion on Karen when she started was:

1\. Karen is hot.  
2\. No, Kelly, of course he doesn't think Karen's hot.

He was forced to update his opinion when she overheard him talking to Toby in the kitchen about his X-Box.

"Wait, you have an X-Box?" she said, halfway to the door with her lunch.

"Yeah," said Ryan, grinning despite himself. "Just got it."

"Do you have Call of Duty?" Karen asked. "Yeah," Ryan said, because he couldn't go home from the store with nothing to play, right? "Two and three, actually. There was a sale." Karen's face lights up and he suddenly can't remember if he's ever seen her smile before. At least not like this.

"Oh, I am so coming over to kick your ass later!" she said. "Um, I mean, if that's okay."

Ryan blinked, looked at Toby, then back at Karen.

"Yeah, sure, totally."

 _"Awesome,"_ said Karen. "We'll bring beer."

"Um, okay," Ryan said, as she backed out of the kitchen.

Turned out she actually could kick his ass, but not nearly as much as she could kick Jim's. Both of them came over to Ryan's apartment three times and Jim always got killed immediately and spent the rest of the night flipping through Ryan's roommate's Sports Illustrateds from 2003, while Ryan tried to not get his ass handed to him too badly. Karen was _really_ good. It was almost creepy.

**

Somehow Ryan gets back together with Kelly the next week and Jim walks in on them kissing in the break room.

"Oh, uh, sorry," he says, as they move aside to let him get at the soda machine.

"Bye, Ryan," Kelly says, and tosses a smile over her shoulder as she leaves. Ryan shoves his hands in his pockets and goes back to looking at the same sad vending machine choices he has every day, which is what he'd been doing before.

"Back together, huh?" Jim says, and Ryan frowns over at him, because who is he, Jim Halpert, Relationship Expert? "No, that's totally cool, I'm glad," he says, and gives Ryan a weird smile before walking out. Freakshow.

**

They're at Poor Richard's and somehow Ryan's had a few shots. More than a few. Several. A lot.

He blinks at the empty glass in front of him, which used to be an Irish Car Bomb. He thinks that was Karen's idea. Karen's actually sitting next to him, turned sideways, her feet on the legs of his chair, leaning in toward him to laugh at something Oscar's saying on Ryan's other side. She keeps touching Ryan's arm, when she doesn't have to. Ryan nervously drags his eyes up to look at Jim, who's sitting across from them, but he doesn't look mad. He's watching them, but not in an angry way, more of a ... focused way. Ryan blinks and shakes his head, and looks back at Karen when she asks if he wants another drink.

"Uh, yeah, sure," he says, smiling at her without meaning to, and Karen orders a round of Redheaded Sluts. Ryan slumps down in his chair and stretches his legs out, which means his knee accidentally knock against Jim's under the table. Jim coughs and jerks away.

It's not until everyone else from work has taken off that he finds out what's going on. Karen's reached across the table to tangle her fingers with Jim's, but she's still talking to Ryan, and managing to follow everyone else with her eyes as they leave.

"So I heard you and Kelly broke up again," Karen says, conversationally. Her knee is just barely brushing his thigh, and Ryan keeps accidentally staring at Jim's thumb moving over her skin. Jim has big hands.

"Oh, um, yeah," Ryan says. He doesn't really want to talk about it. Or think about it.

"That sucks," Karen says. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks," Ryan says, and looks at his beer.

"Well, we were thinking," Karen says. "If you wanted to hang out with us sometime, that would be cool."

Ryan frowns and looks up.

"What, like for Call of Duty?"

"Uh, well, no," Karen says. "I meant, like, at my apartment. Um, overnight."

Ryan blinks at her, and Jim cracks up.

"Really? That's what you came up with?" Jim says, and Ryan turns to look at him. Karen swats at him across the table, but misses.

"Oh, whatever, Halpert," she says. "At least I managed it, unlike some people."

"Yeah, okay," Jim says, still laughing, and takes a swig of his beer. It seems casual, but he darts a quick look at Ryan as he sets it down.

"What?" Ryan says weakly. Karen's hand is on his arm again, her thumb warm against his wrist.

"Oh, you don't have to say anything now," Karen says. "Just, um, think about it, okay? No pressure."

Ryan looks back over at Jim, who shrugs and gives him a 'what can you do?' look.

"Um," says Ryan, and then Karen takes her hand off his arm and starts talking loudly and brightly about Obama vs. Hilary as she and Jim are standing up and grabbing their stuff and paying the tab.

"See you later, Ryan," she tosses over her shoulder, and Ryan tries to pretend he's not watching them go. He needs another drink.

**

Everything's perfectly normal at work on Monday, and the Monday after. Kelly's not speaking to him, which is kind of impressive, and Jim and Karen are both acting like Jim and Karen, making client calls whenever he walks by. Jim talks to Kevin at lunch about fantasy football and Karen and Pam team up and manage to interrupt every sentence of Michael's for twenty minutes without him noticing. Ryan studiously pretends he's not thinking about either of them and their insane, insane ideas.

The week after that is the barbecue Karen's holding at her apartment. It's on a Saturday and normally he'd have plans, but this week beer pong with his cousin's frat sounds less interesting than normal.

"Hey, you coming to Karen's thing tomorrow?" Jim asks idly as Ryan's watching his lunch turn in the microwave. He's grabbing a mug from the cabinet and standing so close Ryan can smell his aftershave.

"Oh, um, yeah, probably," he says. It's just a party, right? He can leave any time. Jim nods and pours himself a cup of coffee.

"Cool," he says, as he walks out, his back turned so Ryan can't see his expression. "You should."

**

Karen's apartment is small, but way more put-together than Ryan's, and she has a patio where Jim's grill is set up. Ryan avoids the grill all night, which still doesn't keep Kevin from teasing him. He's not even surprised anymore.

The music's good, and there's a lot of beer, and frozen margaritas, and Karen's wearing this sparkly shirt and Ryan keeps catching himself watching Jim watch her even as he keeps one ear on the conversation he's having with Toby and Karen's next door neighbor about the construction going on downtown.

The longer Ryan's at Dunder Mifflin, the happier he is any and all times he's not at work. He grabs another beer out of the cooler and perches on the railing of Karen's patio. He's drunk enough that the night's getting stretched out, time going funny, and somehow Karen's living room through the sliding glass doors is surprisingly empty. Like, totally empty. Like, everyone's gone.

"Yeah, thanks for coming!" Karen's voice drifts back from somewhere he can't see, and then he hears the front door close and the music get turned down just a little. He's busying himself with picking the label off his beer bottle when the sliding door opens again

"Hey," Jim says, doing something to the grill, and a minute later Karen comes outside. She's taken off her shoes, so she has to stand on tiptoe to kiss Jim, who slides his hand down to grab her ass. It's weird to see, since they usually don't touch at work at all -- Ryan's still not sure Michael's figured out that they're dating; it took him walking in on him and Kelly with her hands halfway up his shirt, for him to find out about _that_. Ryan looks back at his beer bottle.

"Hey," Karen says from right in front of him. She's smiling when he looks up, and again he can't help but smile back. Karen is really, really pretty. "What'd the beer bottle ever do to you?"

"It killed my family," Ryan says, and she laughs and reaches out to take it from him, so their fingers brush. There's not much left, but she tilts it back, and he watches her throat move as she swallows, his hands tightening on the railing where he's still sitting. Jim's doing something to drain the cooler, but when Ryan glances over he's watching them. He raises his eyebrows when he catches Ryan looking, and Ryan looks away fast.

"So..." says Karen, stepping in closer, so she bumps against his knees, and Ryan finds his hands settling on her hips. He's opening his mouth to say something, anything, when she kisses him, fast, like a question.

She steps back almost immediately, and leans into Jim when he comes up behind her. Jim gives Ryan one of his complicated half-smiles, and Ryan thinks about leaving. He thinks about not leaving.

"So you wanna go inside or what?" Karen says, voice light.

Ryan isn't looking at her; he's watching where Jim's fingers are just dipping under the waistband of Karen's pants, in front, somewhere to the right of her belly button. It's a big hand. It's a nice waist. Ryan swallows.

"Yeah, sure."

**

"Man," says Karen a little breathlessly, as Ryan mouths his way down her neck. "It took me like six months to talk him into this."

"What, in general? Or with me?" Ryan says, sitting back, because if he doesn't keep talking he might start to freak out a little.

Jim and Karen exchange a look.

"Well, both," she says. Jim half-turns her toward him and pulls her shirt over her head and Ryan's mouth goes dry.

"Oh." Ryan says.

"Oh, whatever, like you don't know you're hot," Karen says.

Jim smirks at Ryan suddenly.

"Yeah, Michael sure thinks so."

Karen lets out a laugh and Ryan punches Jim in the shoulder.

"Shut up, gaywad," he says, but it comes out a little ineffectually because Karen's hand is suddenly on his thigh, as she kisses Jim. Just when he's starting to feel uncomfortable, she stops and looks at him, eyes bright, and he kisses her hard, knowing Jim's watching them.

When he stops, she's breathing hard, but she moves back and raises her eyebrows at them. It takes Ryan a second to realize what she wants, and then Jim's hands are on his face, turning Ryan toward him. He gives Ryan a frowning, determined look and kisses him. The kiss is better than the look. Stubbly, but earnest.

Karen lets out a little noise, and she's biting her lip when they stop and Ryan looks at her.

"Shit, that's hot," she says, and Ryan kisses Jim again, so he's not one-upped.

Karen's frowning this time when they stop.

"Wait," she says, looking at Ryan. "You've done this before." Ryan looks over at Jim, whose expression shifts from 'slightly dazed' to 'provisionally amused'. He raises an eyebrow and Ryan sighs.

"Kelly thinks guys kissing is hot, too."

**

"Watch," says Jim. "What she _really_ likes is--"

_"Oh."_

"Yeah."

"Nice."

**

Ryan's half asleep and having trouble tracking the conversation Karen and Jim are still having.

"Now you know what we get to talk about," Jim says in the dark.

"What?" asks Karen.

"The other end of the bargain," Jim says, teasing, and Karen must elbow him or something, because he makes a disgruntled noise, then starts tickling her, and seriously, Ryan is trying to sleep here.

"What bargain?" he says, to get them to stop.

"Oh," says Karen. "I said if he did this, then we could _talk_ about girl-girl-guy."

Happily, Ryan falls asleep before he hears the rest of that conversation. Crazy paper-selling swingers. Why can't he ever know anyone normal?

**

Ryan wakes up to the sound of cabinet doors banging. He smells coffee. It takes him a second to realize where he is, and then he sits up fast. He then lies back down just as fast, pressing his fingers to the spot between his eyes that feels like it's being hit with an ice pick. Someone else is in the bed. He just slept with a dude. Who is his coworker. And his coworker's girlfriend. Who is also his coworker. And he has a ton of homework.

"I hope you guys are hungry," Karen yells from the other room, and Ryan cracks his eyes open to see Jim, who blinks at him blearily from the other side of the bed.

"She never gets hangovers," he says. "It's disgusting."

"Let's kill her," Ryan says.

Jim laughs and yawns and sits up slowly. He looks like a guy who's pleased he's just run a marathon. Or maybe just like a guy who's just gotten laid.

"Yeah, right," he says. "I'm the only one around here who ever gets their head blown off."

Ryan laughs. "Man, how do you suck _so bad_ at _video games_?"

"Thank you," says Jim. "Thanks. Even Andy's better than me. Which... is not a phrase I ever wanted to say." Ryan snorts.

"Hey, I'm going to shower," Jim adds, standing and yawning again. "Unless you want to go first." Ryan shakes his head, then winces.

He wanders out to the kitchen after the shower starts, and after he finds his pants (behind a chair on the far side of Karen's room -- how did that happen?). Karen snorts when she sees him.

"Your hair is amazing," she says, and Ryan pats it down ineffectually. There are eggs cooking on the stove, and watching her poke at them he gets a flash of how fantastic she looks naked. How surprisingly good Jim was at getting him off. (And how smug he looked about it afterward. Of course.)

Well, Ryan thinks. This could be worse. At least there's no sex tape.


End file.
